Those Tiny Ads in Back of the New Yorker

Via The Browser, a short consideration of those tiny ads in the back of the New Yorker by Dushko Petrovich: “Their size congratulates your sense of discovery. At first, you think these little rectangles are amusing because they offer monogrammed sweaters and self-publishing opportunities — things that are undoubtedly funny, in a sad, Skymall sort of way. But sometimes the funny sadness goes deeper than that, like the sadness of ‘unique diamond fish jewelry’ for $15,000.”

Are they real? Are they a joke? There are some jokes in this essay, I think (“It’s like a mini-Buñuel movie!”), but the ads are not a joke. The smallest ads are priced by the inch — it’s $5,520 for a one inch ad.